Shepard - Houston-Packer Collection BV4500 .S43 1657

A wholefomeCaveat which knew not 7ofeph, and it's laid then they wereop- preffed. Thus Jeroboam whom the ten Tribes chafe, Hof. 5. i t. he oppreffed the people he will be in novating, and this becomes their opprefhon : Thus the people under the reign of degenerate Solomon ( though their complaint might be in part unjuft.) Such is the ve- rrome of fin an unfubduedneffe to the Kingdom God, that the Lord turns light into darkncèfe , and makes an aking headmatter of forrow to all the flare and bo- dy ofpeople. Ecclef. i o. 16. Wo to i'hee, O Land. when thy King is a child. And one man (hall do a world ofhurt, oneShebna or Amaziah, and this the Lord loth in justice many times for caftiug.off his government. 3. Sometimes the Lord gives a people up into the hands ofone another to be mutual! oppreffors of each other, that a man neighbour (hall be his oppreffor. Zach. t t. 9 ' I will pitty no more the inhabitants of the land, I will deliver them every one into his neighbours hands. I will feed you no more, that which dyeth let it dye, & that which is cut offlet it be cut off, and let the reft eat every one thefefh ofa- nother. Sometimes the Lord is pleafed to fend marvellous !traits into a place, that men are forced to imbondage t iemfelves fometimes by words as bitter as death, as sharp as arrows; the Lord is pleated for theforfaking of his righteous wayes ro make a mans felf rip his own bo- wels, the father againft the childe, the mailer (hall be a fcourge to the fervant,and the fervant (hall be a fcourge to his mailer, weary him of his life, the government of the Lord in a mans heart or family being call off, Mic. 7. 4, 5. Truft not in a friend : No greater bondage in the orld then for men profeIling the Lord, to be defperate- ly let one againft another. 4. By taking from a people all that righteous power ofgovernment the Lord bath let over them, when a peo- plcdelpiting the Lord and inward government firft (for there all begins) and fo not prizing what they have, nor praying for them, nor fubjeaing to them, the Lordhere - upon fends fome fickneffe , or fome other evil!, that they are either fuddenly taken away, or gradually, and when they are goneeall fink, or elfe fuch croffe carriages; that as Mofes faid, fo fay they, Icannot bear this people. Thus fudges 2z. 25. Men did what was right in their own eyes when there was no King in Ifrael. No State fo mifera- ble as an Anarchie , when every one is a flave, becaufe wcrY

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